Insects they are here for certain reason.We see no “pest”. More than 90% of insects are here to be good worker and help the ecosystem. Often, they tell us what is the soil mineral lacking or what is wrong with the environment. They have their own task and responsible to do such as decomposing. We don’t kill the insects. If you want to get rid of them so that you can get your harvest, you can prepare some solution with the smell the “pest” dislike to chase them away. This time, we prepare the solution with neem leave, tobacco leave, and chilli. We also mulch our garden with citronella.

The other way or natural pest control are such as encourage natural predator (frog, owl, dragon fly, birds etc.), make pond (to attract predator and balance ecosystem), use strong local seed for planting, prepare healthy soil, not using synthetic chemical spay on garden (weaken the soil and imbalance ecosystem), and many more.

Chilli

Neem Leave

Prepare Tobacco, Chilli, and Neem Leave

Smash them together

Place in pail and mix with water

Stay for 1 week and the soution can be used as natural pesticide. Most of the bug and insect dislike this smell.

Raining season is our moment to sow and plant. Not only planting plants for our food (like coffee, mango, rambutan, longkong, papaya, banana, etc.), vegetables, legumes (such as tamarind, moringa, acacia etc.), we also pay much attention on our staple food— RICE. In Sahainan, we eat mainly sticky rice, black rice, and brown rice. We have our seed from our own seed saving and also seed exchange with local community. This is the first year that we are planting rice in this mountain land as we just arrive last year. And this is the time to experiment and see which species/technique will produce the most harvest. Other than eating crop, we also plant construction plant such as teak wood and bamboo. We hope we will have lot of raw material to play with natural building!

The raining season at North of Thailand has started. While our neighbors are busying planting corn for selling, we are also busy to prepare our paddy field and planting our staple food— RICE!!

As this is the first year we plant paddy in this new land, we will start with small and slow solution. We are planting also other plants such as pumpkin, black soy bean, long bean and many more as the ground cover. We got several kinds of local heirloom seed from local village and we also have our seed that we saved from last year. We will also experiment to have companion planting (paddy and dark soy bean) together.

Before we start to plant our paddy, we did the float test to make sure the seed that we are using are the very good quality one. Materials used are sea salt, egg (fresh), buckets. water, and sieve. This method is very effective for paddy seeds, however, if you are planting other kind of seeds, you have to consider about the buoyancy and the density of the seeds.

Diluting salt in water

Add salt into the water until the egg can be floating on water. Now, the water is really high density.

Put the seeds inside the water

Sieve away the floating seed. We will plant only the seed which is sinking.

We wash the seed that we are going to plant in normal water for 3 times. It is important to get rid of the salt because we don’t want that in our soil later. Before planting, we also soak our seed in EM that we made.

One function is supported by multiple elements. Now we have less worry about our water supply even in the dry season.

How do we get our water before this? In Sahai Nan, we have well, ponds, and we used to harvest the rain water, and last year, we connected the pipeline to harvest the clean natural spring water from the mountain aside. Plus, we have food forest and mulched soil to conserve water in the soil. That is why making good soil which can absorb and keep water underground is important. For us, bedside providing good nutrient for the plants and food for the creatures, good soil the world largest cheapest best water reservoir.

With the new water tank built, we can store our natural spring water in, just for emergency. Human are cutting down trees and soil depleted so we have to prepare incase the spring water decrease in the dry season (but we don’t hope for that!!!). of course during the raining season we have no problem in getting water, but with less greens and the depleted soil which act like concrete, flood could happen easily! So, protect the forest and ecosystem, and spreading the education is vital here.

We thank you all the volunteer who helped us to complete this water tank. We also made a stair case to the top of this water tank. Here you can enjoy the nice view, sun rise, yoga, meditation, etc.

Ohm we would like to use natural material just like how we use to build our houses (bamboo, mud, straw etc.)…but in the end we decide to use simen and bricks, for water proof! If you have any idea or knowledge about how to make water proof natural building (by using wax or anything), please share with us!

Preparing bricks

Preparing bricks

Plastering the concrete up

The top layer

Hand made teak wood stair case to the top of water tank by our lovely volunteers

We are looking for long-term volunteers to stay for at least months to help manage and develop our farm. For those who are interested in spending more than one month on our land, you will have chance to enjoy our farm life and gain more understanding about our tropical climate, permaculture agriculture, natural building, paddy plantation, farm maintenance, northern Thai local food, local community and culture, food forests, and much more.

Please tell us about your interests and the skills you would like to learn during your stay so that we can arrange a win-win situation. We wish to provide you with a meaningful hands-on learning experience.

How to become a long-term volunteer on our farm:

1) Contribute 10000 baht for a FIRST two-month stay, food and accommodation included.

2) When you start to stay here, you can prepare a proposal and summit to us before your third week stay. Approval depends on the farm owner’s decision. In your proposal,

· List any specific experiences that you have which might be handy (example: facilitator in community building, agro-forestry, engineering, circus arts, carpentry, counseling, etc.).

· Your ideas about how to improve our farm.

· We might have extra tasks from time to time. Are you willing to take responsibility to manage one or more of the following tasks under our guidance? Please tick the tasks that you can contribute to or become a leader of:

o Food shopping

o Kitchen management (arrange volunteers who prepare meals each day)

o Meal preparation

o Seed saving

o Planting

o Gardening / mushroom garden

o Guiding new volunteers (tour guide, logistics, etc.)

o Reception (guide volunteers/visitors, prepare their accommodation and have them sign “Volunteer Agreement” when they arrive.)

· What other tasks can you contribute to our farm?

The first 3 weeks of your stay here is your opportunity to know whether you like or adapt to our farm life. If you do not like it, you can just contribute the normal fee as normal volunteer. If you like here, you can prepare your proposal. If we love your passion and love to have you here for more than 2 months, we might provide free food and accommodation for your following months stay! Welcome to join us and have a special experience in your life!

Tacomepai is an organic food forest farm, not a tourist attraction. We aim to develop this land into an education and demonstration centre. Please do not come here if you are only looking for cheap food and accommodation.

Interested in a rare opportunity to really learn about adobe building? You can participate in the construction of a new adobe cottage at our lovely friends farm at Mae Mut Garden starting in July 2015, this is a good chance to see a job through almost from start to finish and to learn and practice all aspects of adobe construction and also get some experience of freeform bamboo roofing.

-It is also responsible for its waste, it aims not to pollute the surrounding environment i.e. with either excess nitrogen into the water systems or weed seed into any natural systems.

-It uses design to minimise the gardeners chores and energy input. Repeatative, hard work is the joy of few permaculturalists.

-It aims to imitate nature. Visually this is the most noticeable difference between organic gardening and permaculture. In permaculture gardens (home systems is the more wholistic term) there is rarely bare soil, the conservation of soil and water is a high priority. There is a more complex use of space. Plants are allowed to set seed, are interplanted for pest control. You will be unlikely to see plants in rows

What is Permaculture?

Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally ecosystems which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing the food, energy, shelter and material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.

Permaculture is a system of design assembling conceptual, material and strategic components in a pattern that benefits life in all of its forms.

The philosophy behind permaculture is one of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation, rather than protracted and thoughtless action; of looking at systems in all their functions, rather than asking only one yield of them; and of allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolution.